I was having a conversation with my mom about Gmail and its space limit. She had taken them at their literal word and not deleted any emails. She’s indignant. She’s also an e-Hoarder. Now what, you may ask, is an e-Hoarder? You must have seen the show on A&E about hoarders with stuff piled high. Well, this is all about your email box piled high. My mother, at one point, had 40,000 emails in her inbox. All at once. Most of it unread. She insisted that she was going to go through it all and read the important things and then delete . In fact, the emails just multiplied until Google sent a nice note warning of impending doom. Yea, didn’t see that coming.
Is this you? Do you have “digital mess” strewn across the internet? Has your incessant saving (and maybe printing) created a mind full of unimportant things to “do” and less creative time for your business? Well, here are 4 steps to get rid of the “digital mess”
1. Separate what you can do into Now (5 min or less), Later(Schedule it in your calendar), and Never(Chuck it) piles. Get honest with yourself, the best intentions are not actually actions just intentions. So while you may want to start that next creative endeavor do you really have time now? Do this consistently.
2. Unsubscribe. Back away from the mailing lists. They multiply like rabbits and are just as hard to keep up with. How much of those do you actually read? How much actually enrich what you are up to?
3. Organize your inbox. Whether you color code it or automatically send it to folders. Find a system that works for you. This way you can deal with one topic/item/idea at a time instead of jumping around like a child whose had cotton candy for the first time.
4.Delete. Nothing lasts forever including your emails. When a message has lost its relevancy why do you need to keep it around? You have ‘someday-when-I-have-time-I’ll…..emails”? Go to step 1.
Digital mess is something you can’t escape from but definitely something you can deal with.
What are some of the things that you do?